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The linked WSJ article has an interview-quote from Scott Aaronson: > Anyone perceived as the ‘mainstream establishment’ faces a near-insurmountable burden of p
by Terr_ 1y ago
The linked WSJ article has an interview-quote from Scott Aaronson:
> Anyone perceived as the ‘mainstream establishment’ faces a near-insurmountable burden of proof, while anyone perceived as ‘renegade’ wins by default if they identify any hole whatsoever in mainstream understanding.
I feel this Futurama clip about evolutionary "missing link" fossils [0] captures a little bit of that frustration. Building any cohesive framework for understanding a big problem is always harder than finding and attacking a weak spot and declaring the entire thing flawed.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICv6GLwt1gM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICv6GLwt1gM
- giraffe_lady 1y ago> finding and attacking a weak spot and declaring the entire thing flawed. It's funny because I've come to think of this exact thing as basically the defining characteristic of the HN rhetorical style. It's not unique to here of course but it's where this approach is taken most seriously as honest rigorous debate. Long time commenters here have internalized it to the point where their writing is large defensive in anticipation of these rhetorical chisels that will try to pry into any minute crack to dismiss the entire issue at hand.
- Terr_ 1y agoIn my own writing experience of stuffing qualifier words and caveats everywhere, it's at least as old as Usenet.
- etblg 1y agoError: Compiler warning: Appeal to Authority fallacy detected on line 8, your argument is hereby invalid or whatever fallacy nerds like bringing up in debates, just pick your favourite one and insert it here.
- Terr_ 1y ago> your argument is hereby invalid Which is not-quite but sometimes leads to a Fallacy Fallacy comeback: Just because the argument is unsound doesn't mean the conclusion is wrong. :p